Those Pesky Squirrels!

[heavyhitterokra]

Those Pesky Squirrels!

My garden is about 500' feet South of my house, with a thick line of trees between here and there, so I can't even see my garden from my house.  I have to walk down to the little footbridge at the creek before I can see past my hog pen, so my garden ends up being a "Wildlife Free For All" while I'm not there.

I walk my geese to the garden twice per day, and end up spending several hours per week down there, just pulling weeds and doing maintenance.
Still, the squirrels just about carry the place off while my back is turned.

Lately, every morning and every evening, I find evidence of 'chiseled' ripe tomatoes laying all around on the ground.  The squirrels climb my cages, take one or two bites of whatever they find to their liking, then move on to the next plant to repeat the same offense. 

Sometimes, they chisel a huge 'V' the entire way across the tomato face, sometimes, they only leave one little vampire bite at the top, sometimes, all I find is a pile of discarded tomato skins, where they've eaten all the goodies and left me the trash.

To deal with this problem, I set several live, cage type traps, baited with whole salted peanuts, or make a ball of peanut butter and sunflower seeds to use as bait.

That works pretty well.  I usually end up catching three or four of them before they wise up and stop going inside.  I usually transport them to a new location a few miles East of here and set them free, being how it's hot Summer and I don't like processing squirrel while I'm trying to do my other chores.

However, a good buddy of mine, who also happens to be an amazing chef, sent me a fantabulous Squirrel Recipe that makes it awfully hard not to bring a few of these little pests to the kitchen for dinner. 

Here's Chuck's slant on what to do with the surplus squirrels:


Ron,

Here is one I cooked up.

This is a slow cooker process, sotherwise old tough squirrels don't fry well.

Stick them in a crock pot, or slow, saltwater boil.

When the meat falls off the bone-debone it.

Mix Cream cheese, green chilies, some cumin, garlic, onions and onion powder. Saute the onions first, then add Monterrey jack cheese.

Dip some corn tortillas in hot oil (or you can roll them).

Spoon the meat, cheese, mixture into tortillas and roll them into enchiladas.

Mix a little fat and flour to make rue.

Now I cook my cream cheese for the sauce and add it into the rue. it's work but it will be a nice sauce with no lumps when your done.



So, back to it:

Make sauce-green chili, chip stock, with the same seasonings as above. When the cream cheese rue has tightened the sauce sufficiently, pour it over the enchiladas and bake until bubbling around the edges. top with Monterrey jack cheese and melt a bit.


So it is, I call this concoction:

"Monterrey Jack Green Chili Squirrel Enchiladas." 

That should work nicely to help tidy up your surplus squirrel problem.

[macmex]

Ron, I hate the way that squirrels ruin crops. Most years I lose all the apples and peaches on our place to squirrels. It's as if they have a hidden mike in my house. When my wife says, "we should pick apples after lunch" that means the squirrels will do a fireman's brigade and snack all of the apples before 11 am!

I do harvest some squirrels each year, just to justify the lost fruit. They rarely bother my garden, fortunately. I believe they feel more exposed there.

Now that we have a cat, I have hopes that we may get some apples this year. The cat is quite the hunter.

Thanks for the recipe!

[heavyhitterokra]

Chuck is always a good resource for wild game recipes; he's an Iron Chef and really knows his business. I've been with him when he was smoking 7 hogs at the same time and pulled it off perfectly! He's quite a guy. Before he retired, he use to buy nearly all the produce and herbs I could grow, just for his kitchen.

He's even helped me to thin out a few deer over the years.  I've never seen anyone who could process a deer as nicely or as quickly as he does.  I wish I could have been his Apprentice.  He would have been one heck of a good Teacher.  A guy could learn a lot from Chuck ... I've been toying with the idea of working up a 'Betty Cracker' recipe book, using all the old, Redneck recipes I've accumulated over the years.  I just haven't gotten around to it.

[heavyhitterokra]

Yesterday morning when I got up to feed the chickens, there was a red squirrel inside the goose pen, hanging upside down, stealing feed from the top shelf of my little feed shed.

When I went in there to run him off, he'd just run in circles and bark at me. I wish I had a video of our little silver hen, as she chased after him while he ran around, and around, the inside of the enclosure.

His little she-friend squirrel-buddy even attempted to get inside the pen to help him, as the little silver hen was too busy chasing him around the enclosure to notice.

The front door of the pen was standing wide open the whole time, but neither one of them ever figured it out; so I went back inside the house to get a camera to snap a few photos. By the time I got back to the pen, he was back to hanging by his toes, stealing feed from the top shelf of the little feed shed again. His girlfriend was still busily trying to get inside, but couldn't find the still wide open door.  He never even tried to run away while I was snapping the following photos, but the female finally did leave.


The male red squirrel hanging upside-down, stealing feed from the back-side of the top-shelf of my little feed room.

His little girlfriend, peering inside to see if she could help get the little silver hen to stop chasing her buddy around.

 Even as I stepped up to get a better camera angle, this determined little guy never missed a beat.

 Eventually, having not been successful at running him off from the inside of the enclosure, I walked around back to try to scare him away from the opposite side.  Instead of scampering away, he just climbed up the fence to meet me face to face.  He never left while I was still outside. 

I can't help but feel that he struck this pose on purpose!  Finally, he just got tired of watching me, watching him, and returned to his endeavor of swiping more feed from the back-side of the top shelf of the little feed shed.  As much as I despise squirrels swiping my things, sometimes you just gotta admire their tenacity and let them win the day.

[macmex]

Over ten years ago I had a nice pair of calf skin gloves. Then, one day one of them disappeared. I didn't think too much about it, as such disappearances are commonplace in my life. Anyway, a couple of years past and I decided to clean out some junk in the building we use as a chicken coop. There was an old bench seat from a van in there and I drug it out to throw away. Wouldn't you know, a squirrel had made a nest inside that seat. In that nest I found about 30 lb of chicken feed and my glove. Unfortunately, the squirrel had eaten off one of the fingers, so I threw the glove away.  

[heavyhitterokra]

Your account of the missing chicken feed reminds me; I once saw a barrel-type deer feeder in the woods with a hole chewed in the plastic lid. Squirrels had been climbing the tripod and had almost emptied it of all the corn inside. Nearby, was a hollow oak tree. I could see pieces of corn protruding from every crack in the wood for several feet above my head.

I can't imagine the number of trips it must have taken those squirrels to empty an entire barrel of corn. And for what reason? It was already inside a barrel that was probably nearly as good a shelter from the elements as the hollow tree. Still, you've got to admire their work ethic. If only we could discipline ourselves to achieve as much each day as a single squirrel.

[heavyhitterokra]

Since the seed ticks have gotten so bad lately, I've stopped letting our beagle, 'Ranger' run rabbits any time he feels like it.  I've gotten tired of giving him a bath three times per day and having to change the couch cover every time he comes back inside.

For that reason, I've been putting him on a long leash every morning and letting him tag along with me while I go to do chores.

After doing chores this morning, I realized that I had forgotten to put feed out for the rabbits.  The reason being, Ranger had been with me and the hopping bunnies had stirred him up.

So, I put a leash back on Ranger and took him outside with me for a second time; this time figuring on tying him to the hog trailer before he got stirred up by seeing any more rabbits.

Just as I rounded the corner to the henhouse with Ranger in the lead, there was a fat little red squirrel sitting in the feed trough. (Probably the same one that mooned me the time before last when I posted here).  This Squirrel was clearly distracted, and very actively stealing the chicken's corn.

The same squirrel does the same thing every day.  He, Ranger, and Sunny; our German Shepherd, have a daily routine:  The squirrel steals corn, Sunny sees him, Sunny runs around the backside of the henhouse and flushes the squirrel out; the squirrel leaps from the feed trough, lands right in front of Ranger (who is not that fast of a runner), and Ranger goes nuts, bawling his head off, nose to the ground in hot pursuit!  Ranger tracks the squirrel until it 'magically' disappears up the first tree.  Then both dogs run around in circles, wagging their tails, wondering how that squirrel always seems to disappear, right when they nearly have him within their grasp!

(To this day, I think Ranger still believes that the squirrel evaporates like the morning dew, every time he chases it for about 20' feet.)

This time though, since I had Ranger on a leash, leading him around, it messed up their entire routine.

Sunny came blasting around the back side of the henhouse, the squirrel flushed out of the feed trough, and there I was; standing right there in the path of a runaway squirrel with a beagle straining against an extra long - extra tight leash.

I guess the squirrel didn't know what to do? Instead of running in any of several different directions where he could have easily escaped; he just jumped about 5' feet into the air with a slight forward trajectory; his legs sprawled and claws drawn, spinning like a little slashing ninja, X-Man.  He was nearly at eye level with me as I rounded the corner.

For a split second, I could almost feel a hundred stinging swipes of those tiny, sharp claws, just as a blur of frightened red squirrel hit the ground in front of me.  Then, it rebounded about where Ranger's tail was.  In rebounding, the squirrel hit the tightly stretched leash, used it like a monkey uses a grapevine, and quickly ascended the portion of the leash that was stretched tightly between Ranger's collar and my right hand!

Then, as quickly as a flash; before either of us even had time to turn our heads, the squirrel was gone!

Ranger, in complete startle-mode let out a frightened, off-key, bawling-squawling sound! 

You can bet I screamed like a little girl!

The squirrel took a new, unplanned, route never before seen nor imagined, and bounced sideways, nearly at flying speed; as he scampered full-out across the deck of our wooden footbridge.

Ranger took off bawling, dragging me after him and the squirrel, while Sunny just stood there in utter disbelief,  having no idea where the squirrel could possibly have gone if it hadn't gone up the usual side of its usual tree.

Poor squirrel. He steals from us every day, but you have to admire his dogged determination. Right now, it's worth the feed and the peaches that I lose, just for the entertainment value.  This, added to the previous squirrel mooning that he gave me makes a person realize this in no ordinary squirrel.  He's got character.  (A guy has got to admire a good squirrel mooning).  I'll miss that squirrel if he ever slips up and ends up being Sunny's breakfast.

[FrostyTurnip]

Haha  I can totally see ya’ll going through this.  We miss Ranger’s floppy ears.  Bet they were flying that day!